The invention relates to a device for wound treatment and a wound covering bandage or dressing made according to said device which advantageously can be used in particular in various methods for the vacuum wound treatment of surface wounds.
It is a frequent task in medical practice to suck off liquids. In particular, concerning deep, large and, in particular, additionally infected wounds. It is heretofore common practice to put wound covering onto the wound which does not grow together with the tissue. The medical puts a first mull layer upon this wound covering which a tube drain, partially in multiple turns is inserted by hand and the same in turn is covered by a second layer of mull and subsequently the entire wound area is covered by an adhesive plaster. A negative pressure is then applied to the end of the tube drain so that the wound liquid may be sucked off in this manner. Apart from the long period of time required to change the above described means this kind of procedure requires considerable skill because during the wound dressing all the separately put in parts of the arrangement have to be fixed which very often cannot be managed by a single person alone.
Another kind of wound covering which was particularly developed for wound treatment by vacuum is, for example, described in DE 601 18 546 T2. The wound covering described there requires, on the one hand, comparatively high manufacturing expenses and, on the other hand, it cannot be easily adapted to wounds of different size. In order to carry out a vacuum treatment this solution requires, among other things, relatively complicatedly executed additional coverings and, usually, a bell-shaped closure of the wound to which is applied an external vacuum connecter. Such designs which project far from the skin surface considerably restrict the movement of the patient and, in addition, cause an unpleasant pressure strain.
The above outlined treatment of such wounds to which a negative pressure is applied is a method practiced for many years which positively influences the healing also of deep and large wounds due to permanent wound stimulation. This kind of negative pressure wound treatment is, for example, described in detail in DE 694 25 881 T3, DE 692 29 940 T2, and DE 692 24 847 T3 so that herein only reference is made thereto. Furthermore, there exist numerous further solutions which will here only be mentioned by example since these are more remote technical solutions. So a wound dressing cover is known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,695,824 B2 for flat surface wounds which consists of two layers, the first layer being directly put upon the wound and the second layer having a moisture closure for preventing egress of moisture from outside the dressing. Between the layers a plurality of feed tubes are provided which ensure a moisture supply for the wound. The above mentioned wound dressing, however, is not designed and rather not suited for being used for wound treatment of deep and badly healing wounds with the aid of the technique of vacuum wound treatment, since it is practically impossible to bring out vacuum-tight from the wound area partially multiple turn tubes. The same applies to the numerous devices for sucking out the wound liquids from body cavities as described, for example, in EP 1 764 127 A1. Furthermore there is described a flat drainage in WO 2008/131895 A1 which eliminates the previously mentioned problem of sealing in that a flat drainage tail is led out laterally from under the dressing covering the wound.
From DE 698 25 767 T2 and DE 698 33 579 T2 there are suction heads known for wound treatment as well as a combination with a surgical sterile sheet in such a manner that a port with an adhesive bandage and a sucking off tube are adhered to a film which adheres to a wound. Here the hard port is disadvantageous which, when a vacuum is applied, presses upon the wound and thus causes pain.
Further applications also use such ports which only differ by different forms and materials as well as by different sucking channels.
Also here the hard port proves to be a disadvantage for the patient. Furthermore, the use of hard ports for small wounds is unsuited as concerns air circulation in the wound area, since a small adhesive face extending over the range of the wound will not be sufficiently aerated. Thus the sucking off of the wound liquid is impeded. The suction of the wound liquid may be maintained only by a special pump which enables the aeration of the wound via the suction tube.
Such special pumps with special additional aeration of the wound area are described, for example, in WO 2008/039314 A1, U.S. 2007/0219532 A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,857,806 B2. These, in fact, solve the problem of a continuous or discontinuous wound aeration while simultaneously maintaining the required negative pressure during the vacuum wound treatment, but there is the necessity of purchasing these at high costs. Furthermore, for example, the necessity of a second additional aeration connection within the wound area is expensive and unsuitable.